Interview: Director Joachim Trier and Actors Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie Talk The Worst Person in the World

The title of Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is seemingly portentous of hang-out session with a truly despicable character. In reality, though, the film radiates all the joys and growing pains of finding oneself both inside of and apart from romance. The third installment in the Norwegian filmmaker’s loosely defined Oslo Trilogy takes its title from a popular local idiom used to self-flagellate in the face of personal shortcomings. There are plenty of opportunities across the film’s 12 chapters for its thirtysomething protagonist, Julie (Renate Reinsve), to do just that as she navigates turbulent personal and professional waters, certain only of her own uncertainty.

The Worst Person in the World translates the wild swings of self-discovery into both visual and narrative terms. Thanks to its rooting in Trier’s steady direction and Reinsve’s assured performance, the film can operate in a fantastical mode while conveying the throes of passion and later shift into an extended and unsparingly frank breakup scene without feeling tonally inconsistent. The Worst Person in the World also benefits immensely from the presence of Anders Danielsen Lie as Aksel, Julie’s longest amorous entanglement. As a through line in the Oslo Trilogy, Danielsen Lie’s experience growing alongside Trier suffuses the film with an emotional authenticity that proves far more potent than the canned wisdom so often entrusted to older partners within similar relationship dramas.

I spoke with Trier, Reinsve, and Danielsen Lie over a spirited lunch last year when they were in town for the premiere of The Worst Person in the World at the New York Film Festival. Our conversation covered their collaboration on characters and backstory, finding maturity on and off screen, and how they pulled off the film’s searing centerpiece breakup scene.

The film is remarkable for the way that the problems that arise within it are tied to time and not to Julie being indecisive. Is that something you were fighting against?

Joachim Trier: It’s written with Eskil Vogt, and we’re two film buffs. With Reprise, that was going to be a buddy movie, but it ended up as something else. Thelma began as a horror film, only for it to turn into a kind of a romantic drama of sorts. I think what we wanted to avoid were clichés of the romantic comedy. I did want to embrace genre, at least as a starting point. And one of those things that we wanted to avoid was making a film about a young woman trying to find herself and then needing a man to find herself.

So it’s probably an anti-rom-com in that sense, and some of the best rom-coms are. Look at strong characters, like Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor movies. She’s not someone who really needs a man, but she realizes how the negotiation of getting close to someone is triggering deep-rooted existential questions in her. We’re trying to avoid some of those clichés like the one you’re mentioning as well where it’ll just be a straight drama, she’ll overcome something, and there we go. It’s a more elliptical film. It’s about time passing. We’re actually following her over a period of almost four or five years in her life and trying to create one narrative. She gets into trouble because she’s indecisive, but I hope it’s more subtle.

So it’s more of just who she is, not meant to be some kind of character flaw?

JT: Yeah, we can embrace her even though she makes terrible mistakes.

Renate Reinsve: Yeah, but things are very complicated because it’s impossible to clearly see the situation you’re in. Such as Julie not being sure that she wants a child, because you can’t know how it feels to have a child before you have it. She doesn’t feel like a mother yet. All these components together [result in her] confusion. So I think that’s why it isn’t a problem. It’s just what life is like, I think.

Was there anything in particular that unlocked the character and helped you find order among the contradictions?

RR: Yeah, I think it was all the nuances. Every scene is so rich, and she’s so complex. And I think it’s more liberating and enriching. It’s easier to get into [the character] because you can go deeper than if she wasn’t written as complex.

Anders Danielsen Lie: I think we all feel like indecisive protagonists in our own lives. It’s funny, I feel that it’s easier to play an indecisive protagonist than someone who’s in charge and makes decisions. I feel that I’ve gone through life in confusion, not really knowing what’s the right choice at any given moment. It’s life that makes you feel like the worst person in the world because life puts you in situations where you have to make impossible choices where you’re gonna hurt someone either way, whatever you choose. I think that’s hopefully what people identify with when they watch the film. When they get to know Julie, [I hope] that this reminds them of their own lives. We have to get out of a relationship sometimes because it’s just the right thing to do, but there will be someone on the other side feeling that she’s the worst person in the world. And she might feel that way herself.

We see Julie’s romantic history at the beginning of the film told to us, but Aksel is ultimately more forthright about offering up those details on his own. Is that just a sign of his age and maturity?

JT: I guess the theme here is a young person who’s longing to be defined and seen by someone she admires, in this case Aksel. At the beginning, that sets up a humorous cliché. He says, “You’re too young. I know who I am, you don’t. This is not gonna work.” And then, obviously, they fall in love. But then she feels very much trapped by being defined. It’s a double bind, and sometimes love is that. We think we’re going to experience something pure, but it becomes transactional. I don’t know if this is a sign of the times or if it’s always been like that, but I know we live in a culture where we quickly swipe to the next thing for instant gratification of some sort. We’re trying to make a long story about that time and space we’re in right now. I think Julie represents that somehow. You’re right, Aksel might be in a different place.

Is there an English equivalent to the Norwegian phrase “the worst person in the world”? How would you use it in conversation?

JT: It’s a bit more of a figure of speech than in English, I presume. It’s the same literal meaning. It’s self-deprecation. “I feel like the worst person in the world.” It’s like personal failure. “I must be the worst person in the world. I live in a rich country, I have choices, I have free education, and I can’t figure out even how to have a partner. I can’t figure out my career.” Feeling lost like that, I presume someone would use that term. But it’s also, I think, a paradoxically fun title of a love story. Because everyone knows if there’s someone you really hate, it’s probably because they mean something to you somehow.

I feel like as Americans, we would avoid taking that personal responsibility. We’d blame society, the world, or fate rather than inviting a lot of introspection into yourself.

JT: But now we’re getting culturally specific with Protestant Scandis, whipping yourself that you’re never good enough. You have that in your culture too! I’m not going to be specific about this religion or that culture, but there are many groups and friendships in America that say, “We feel shit about ourselves too. It’s not just you Scandis!” I think we share some of that.

I thought it was fascinating to ponder the journey that Aksel has probably been on as a comic book artist given the way that form’s cultural cachet has evolved over the last few decades. How did this come into play as the avatar of the artist?

JT: We’re super fans of it. I feel that I grew up in parallel with that character through the ’80s and ’90s, loving the fact that there were these underground spaces for crazy, wild, free discourse of complete transgressional nature drawing up those marginal experiences of being human. I grew up on Mad magazine, Robert Crumb, a lot of very messy, humorous stuff, yet warm and inviting. It’s about sex and excrement and trying out illegal ways of thinking just as a fun premise. I always adored that. I came to admire the great thinkers of graphic novels like Chris Ware or Adrian Tomine. I’ve seen that journey of it becoming more [mainstream] without lessening the quality of it, and I thought in that journey as a character would be metaphorical but say something about development of time. Suddenly, during the ’90s, the underground disappeared. Everything became present and commercial. To be relevant, you had to be on a certain level. I think this is a freedom that we’ve lost.

ADL: And there’s some kind of tragicomic element there, because Aksel is also starting to reach a point in his life where he’s looking backward a bit. There’s this melancholy of time passing. And then also, to smuggle in some of the current debates about masculinity, he has a streak of some old-fashioned masculinity. It was easy to get a lot out of the comic book genre.

JT: He did a lot of research. He hung out with the junkies for a while for Oslo, August 31. He knows writing very well, he’s a very prolific reader, and now you know comic books as well!

ADL: The most important research this time was us two together, hanging out and getting to know each other. I’m so glad that we spent so much time really focusing on the chemistry. When you portray a relationship, you don’t know exactly what you get to show. Sometimes it can be a concern that some important parts of the relationship won’t get enough screen time. One such element could, for example, be their happy days which we don’t see that much. But the moments that you get have to be very specific, and Renate has a long career as a comedic actress. You are much more experienced in comedy than I am, so I had to work a little bit on that to get those moments to work. You invest in the movie because you want people to feel something down the line. So, when they split up, there has to be something at stake.

Can you talk through the process of the big breakup scene at the center of the film, from writing to filming?

ADL: It’s a great piece of screenwriting. That’s where it starts.

RR: Yes, it is!

JT: I think the key to movies is how you stretch and bend time. That’s the whole premise, dramatically. We wanted to do an account of the stages of a breakup, the events in one long scene. It’s quite long. I think we should talk about the performances because it’s you guys that breathe life into it. There were parts that which were very scripted, and there were other parts where I invited you to improvise around very specific beats of a breakup and try to find variations and transitions so that, in the editing of the film, I had material. I think you came up with some really interesting stuff. It was a culmination of a relationship.

RR: Yeah, where to start? It was very intense. Everyone in the room would go home those days and be very affected by this. We tried to really open up to the messiness and complexities of a breakup. It goes a lot of places. I think, for Julie, the paradox of her being with Aksel is that she wants to be defined and have someone see her to see herself. But that’s also why she needs to leave. I thought that it was important to make Julie strong in that situation. He’s so articulate, he can categorize everything he’s been through, and he sees himself very clearly. He’s older, he’s been through more, and he’s reflected a lot. But she hasn’t, she’s just in the chaos. Having her be strong in that situation, she’s right even though she’s also not right. She should have stayed with him. It’s so many things, and I think that’s very true for situations in life.

I think that’s part of what makes the performance so fascinating. She can hold contradictory elements. She’s not a puzzle to solve.

RR: Exactly, it’s very important for her. And it’s a good lesson that I myself learned very late—that this is how you should live. She’s actually very wise to do this. It’s actually mature, but she fucks it up anyway. [laughs]

For all those elements we don’t see, how are you aligning on subtext and backstory?

JT: That’s what rehearsal is about. To us, it’s not about nailing the scene because that’s gonna happen on set. It’s about getting to know the material, imagining it in different variations, and filling in the blanks for ourselves. Every beat is the tip of an iceberg. Every character is a different iceberg you need to know very firmly. Sometimes, also, I’ve learned to be cautious about intellectualizing too much. You can sit in a room being nervous, wanting to achieve your best and feeling as if your goal is to say the smart thing about it. But I think you have to be present in the characters’ dynamics and problems, trying to slowly feel it together and identify it in ourselves so that [performers] have authority. You don’t owe it to tell me in words, but you owe the character to be. That’s the whole transitional process of handing it over to them. And that distinction is very important. As artists, we can do shortcuts and speak smartly once in a while to try and convey something very precise. But [the process] is also about spending a bit of time feeling it out together, having time to question and not having to have the answer.

RR: But that’s an important thing you do. It makes it very easy to be on set. Because we get to ask questions, and you don’t need us to explain to you what we’re doing. If you feel something, you trust that something’s there even though you can see the answer. Or if there is no answer.

JT: The answer’s in the doing, that’s the whole point.

RR: Exactly, but that’s very rare. I feel, when I’m on set, that a director doesn’t really ask you to be very specific and clear on what you do.

JT: It’s an interesting point because we talk a lot about power in our industry at the moment. This a very healthy thing to clear out how we negotiate these very individual experiences of director-actor relationships and how that needs to be a place which is productive only for creating art. But also, hopefully, for a little bit for some personal growth along the way because that creates better art for all of us. The reason that I love to work with people like these actors is that I have some idea of where we’re going, but I’m allowed by their trust in me to not have to be the smart guy in the room all the time and to explore with them. To be more vulnerable as a director. Because I can get nervous when I have sometimes up to 100 people on set that look to me for guidance. I can play that role of being a smart guy if I have to, but I’m unsure as well. To explore around the camera because we know each other is a really liberating thing for me too. I can take a chance and say something that if I rationalized, it might seem stupid, but it could be the right thing to say about something very basic in the scene. We’re trying to create that space together. It’s a mutual thing. I feel that it’s important to also say that actors do lead the scene, actually. We prepare, I hand it over, but you guys lead it. I’m there to support. I think my role is more like that than a general with a whip.

RR: That’s a very powerful value you have.

JT: I’ve made five films now. I’m more assured that’s the way. I felt I owed everyone a brilliant plan all the time when I began directing.

ADL: It’s his fifth child, so now he knows how to be a parent! Sometimes it feels like we’re children, and the director is a warm parent. It feels like a risk to search for something you don’t know. That’s what we do, basically: play as children do. And we try to do it without being aware of cameras and first ADs. That’s risky, and we need someone to see us and help us when we fall. It’s not a general with a whip, but a responsible, warm father figure. You have to have a safe environment in which you can be free. To go back to the [breakup] scene, what’s liberating about it is that it was written in a way that we knew that there were so many dynamics going in every possible direction. Sometimes when you do a scene like that, you might get a certain energy, but it’s not the right one. It wasn’t appropriate for how the scene was written. But what was liberating here is that we knew that we were going pretty much everywhere.

I feel like this hard-earned wisdom is present in the character of Aksel, especially in his final reflective scenes.

ADL: That was a trap we could fall into. I was a bit concerned that, even though he’s seriously ill, you don’t want it to be pretentious. Because he’s also lost, and he’s not gonna mansplain his existential wisdom to her. That was a balancing act.

JT: …or that suddenly you have all the answers! He did well to make it seem like a confession.

ADL: Yeah, and vulnerability is probably an important word.

JT: That’s the point you’re making, actually. Aksel has accepted a vulnerability that Julie might still be avoiding. He gets into a serious situation that brings up deep existential questions in the middle of a quiet, comedic film.